People Magazine Publishes Op-Ed By Former Reporter Who Accused Trump Of Sexual Assault

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Natasha Stoynoff, a former reporter for People Magazine, wrote about her sexual assault accusation against former President Donald Trump in the publication that used to employ her.

In her essay published on Monday, Stoynoff recounted an experience with a Trump-supporting Uber driver who told her — without knowing who her passenger was — that the women who accused the ex-president of “grabbing” them were all “lying! Maria Bartiromo on Fox said so.” Stoynoff, who was being driven to an event in Montana, didn’t know how to react:

I leaned forward in my seat.

“Really?” I said, looking at her in the rearview mirror. “Well, one of those women is sitting in your back seat right now.”

She looked up, startled. Our eyes locked.

For the next 10 minutes I described my harrowing experience at Mar-a-Lago in 2005 when I went to interview Trump and his wife about their one-year wedding anniversary for PEOPLE. I told her how, after [Melania Trump] went upstairs, he led me to a room, pushed me against a wall and, looming over me, forcibly kissed me. I told her how I pushed him away repeatedly, and about the ugly things he said to me.

And finally, I described how when I arrived at my pre-arranged massage appointment at the Mar-a-Lago spa the next morning, the “great guy” shocked the massage therapist by showing up, expecting to find me naked on a table, alone.

By the time we reached the parking lot of the local Super-8, I’d converted my diehard Trumpist chauffeur. She could see I was telling the truth, and more importantly, it had an impact on her.

“You convinced me,” she said, shaking my hand before driving away. “I’m not voting for him.”

If miracles existed, I thought, I’d just witnessed one.

Stoynoff was one of several women who accused Trump of unwanted sexual advances. In her essay, she counts nearly 50 accusers plus the new claims by former model Stacy Williams, who said that Trump groped her in 1993 — in front of the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who claimed in an unearthed audio recording that Trump was his “closest friend for 10 years.”

In September, Stoynoff was one of the Trump accusers who spoke out on her assault in a campaign ad. Trump had denied ever meeting Stoynoff in 2005, but a photograph that includes both of them proved otherwise.